Stephen Fitzpatrick, Jakarta – Indonesia's powerful anti-corruption agency has taken new steps to sideline its disgraced former head, with a senior commissioner giving police testimony against his ex-boss.
Corruption Eradication Commission deputy Chandra Hamzah has revealed that phone taps at the heart of a murder case against his former chief, the Australian-educated prosecutor Antasari Azhar, were demanded by Mr Azhar.
Mr Hamzah told police he had no idea whose mobile phones the taps were to be placed on, only that Mr Azhar insisted it be done.
The numbers turned out to be owned by businessman Nasrudin Zulkarnaen – whose murder Mr Azhar is charged with subsequently organising – and golf caddy Rhani Juliani, 22, a beauty with whom both men were allegedly having a relationship.
Zulkarnaen was slain by motorcycle-riding gunmen in March as he left a Jakarta golf course. It has been suggested he was blackmailing Mr Azhar after discovering the latter in bed with Ms Juliani, who has since disappeared.
If the phone tap claims are true, it will be next to impossible for Mr Azhar to justify having sanctioned them.
The murder case has captivated Indonesia, especially with the arrest two months ago of Mr Azhar. His detention was the ninth in the investigation.
However, there are serious new allegations that Mr Azhar deliberately avoided investigating corruption cases while in office, as well as real concerns that the powerful anti-corruption court established alongside his agency could cease to exist if its mandate is not extended before the government is dissolved in October.
The second problem can be solved with the issuing of a decree by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who promised to do so last week in an election debate.
But there is a large backlog of legislation yet to be passed in the parliament, and there are fears that corruption trials could still be shifted back into the notoriously opaque general criminal justice system if the special court's existence is not signed into law in time.
The first issue – whether Mr Azhar deliberately stifled corruption investigations – could be one that does far more damage to Dr Yudhoyono's graft-busting credentials.
So the surprise arrest late on Friday night of a businessman allegedly at the centre of a corrupt nationwide fire engine purchase scheme seemed to indicate the commission was stepping up its energies while Mr Azhar languishes in jail.
The former boss, although relieved of his duties pending trial, has yet to be sacked – so the move is being read as a direct statement against his performance after he failed to bring in the businessman, Hengky Samuel Daud.
Daud allegedly participated in a corrupt scheme to sell the fire trucks to provincial governments across Indonesia, along with former home minister Hari Sabarno, during the time of president Megawati Sukarnoputri.
Neither Mr Daud or Mr Sabarno has faced prosecution on Mr Azhar's watch. Instead, a senior official in Mr Sabarno's ministry has taken the blame, claiming Mr Daud forced him at gunpoint to sign the fire truck distribution deal.